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Channel Partners: Tap Into UC Now

That’s the message attendees came away with after Monday’s UC Pavilion at the Spring 2011 Channel Partners Conference & Expo. Medium-sized companies, especially, in every vertical – think real estate, medical, education, and so on – are ripe for help from agents, dealers and VARs as IP services fuel the ability to remain in touch any time, anywhere. Businesses with multiple locations are ideal sales targets, too.

Smaller businesses also can make use of UC but they need lower-priced platforms than their larger peers, and more help from partners because they tend to have fewer in-house IT resources. UC further is growing in importance to companies and institutions as their legacy handsets and other equipment fall into obsolescence. Plus, UC saves money because it can be deployed in the cloud, cutting capex costs, and lets end users customize preferences, panelists said.

The first-ever UC Pavilion featured moderator Pam Avila, principal of Sierra Summit Group, and panelists Jim Ortbals, manager of business development for Cisco Systems Inc.; Brian Cuppett, vice president of sales for ScanSource Communications; David Immethun, senior director of marketing for PanTerra Networks; Peter Keane, president of Outreach Technologies; Don Leone, director of cloud communications and SMB for Siemens Enterprise Communications; and Tom Conboy, vice president of sales for Lingo Communications LCC. The UC Pavilion was sponsored by Cisco, ScanSource, PanTerra and Siemens.